Patrick Johnston: 'Suitcase' McKenna packs pads for Utica after being swapped to Canucks

Former Ottawa goaltender Mike McKenna was dealt to the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, was the NHL team's backup Thursday in Montreal and will be headed for Utica, N.Y. on Friday. Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photo / Getty Images

MONTREAL — When you’ve played for 22 different professional hockey teams, nothing seems to faze you.

Just ask Mike McKenna who, if all goes to plan Friday and he clears waivers, will be on his way to the Canucks’ American Hockey League affiliate in Utica, N.Y.

To recap, he took the morning skate Wednesday with the Ottawa Senators. He was set to back up Marcus Hogberg that night against the Vancouver Canucks.

And then the phone rang early in the afternoon informing him he had been traded to the Canucks for Anders Nilsson. He’d have to get himself organized to travel with his new team to Montreal, where they faced the Canadiens Thursday night.

And then he spoke with Canucks management and learned of the plan, that they would be putting him on waivers with the intention of assigning him to the Utica Comets.

“Surreal is the only way to describe it,” McKenna said Thursday before the Canucks played the Canadiens at the Bell Centre.

“I’ve seen players traded after the morning skate in the minors,” he said. “But never the goalies.”

(The last time the Canucks had a day-of-game trade with that night’s opponent was in 1998, when Gino Odjick was flipped to the New York Islanders for Jason Strudwick.)

The trade happened so fast that, like his opposite backup Nilsson, he had to wear his Senators-coloured gear and mask against his former team.

“I was wearing the right jersey,” he said, quickly correcting a premise that suggested he was wearing the wrong jersey for the pads he had on.

Even on limited viewing, what he’s seen of his new team has impressed him.

“This team plays a nice game.”

For McKenna, new faces and new arenas has been a fact of life for much of his career.

“It’s just the way this career path has taken,” he said. “I didn’t have an entry level contract until February of my fourth year pro and I played two minutes later,” he said.

McKenna had been playing for the Norfolk Admirals on an AHL contract when injuries brought him in the frame of Norfolk’s parent club, the Tampa Bay Lightning.

McKenna spent 15 games with the big club that season.

Being a consummate pro, ready to play wherever, whenever, has been his guide. He doesn’t shy away from how hopes and dreams at this level of sports don’t always line up with reality.

“Trust me, I’d have love to have lit the world on fire and stayed in the NHL longer,” he said. “But it’s not something I’m upset about.”

A good attitude will carry you a long way, but it’s performance that carries you further. He may not have kept himself in the NHL, but he’s kept himself in the interest of teams around the NHL for most of the last decade.

“I’ve been better than my goalie partner,” he said matter of factly. “I hope that doesn’t sound egotistical.”

It doesn’t. He’s been the better goalie by the numbers at nearly every AHL stop he’s made.

Since signing that initial deal with the Lightning, he’s been on a two-way deal with an NHL club every season since. The Lightning kept him in their system until 2011. Then there were two years with the Senators, followed by the St. Louis Blues, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Arizona Coyotes, the Florida Panthers, the Dallas Stars and then back with the Senators this season.

Most of the time he’s been in the AHL but he’s still appeared in 34 NHL games along the way.

“I’ve been playing with house money for a long time; there’s a burning competitive desire to do this and do this well,” he said.

He’s a dad. He’s taught himself how to cook: he often travels with a set of chef’s knives and would often prepare meals at home and on the road for himself and teammates.

“They’re in my trunk but I haven’t been able to use them much lately,” he said.

He’s had an avid interest in auto racing since he was a kid.

“I have a myriad of interests,” he said. “I like to do things on my own, I’m a tinkerer.”

He figures this single-minded focus on his passions probably boils down to him being a single child, born to parents who were single children themselves.

As he edges toward the end of his hockey career, he also happily acknowledges his inclinations toward being a leader.

“Leadership’s something I crave, I want,” he said. “A lot of times I’ve been frustrated because coaches have been afraid to put that (leadership) on the goaltender. And in reality we should be.”

As for his likely future status as a fun factoid in the Canucks’ record books, he’s fine with it.

“You just roll with it. I know it’s going to be a punch line for a while.”

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